A futuristic cyberpunk city overrun with chain yielding thugs, flaming oil barrels lighting up a nuclear-polluted sky and a nightmare of seemingly endless street brawls... add in some of the most brutal - almost gabba - kick drums and jagged square wave synth patterns and you have the Streets Of Rage 3 soundtrack. An entirely left of centre and outside of any scene, impeccably produced flashcore Hi-NRG techno album that really sounds quite unlike anything else from the time, yet goes in with all the velocity of an 18-hour stretch down the front at Thunderdome.

It always (and at this point probably shouldn't still) takes us by surprise when we hear a new Data Discs release, just how much we have collectively and seemingly forgotten in the intervening years that have passed since we first experienced these video game soundtracks, just quite how advanced and forward thinking the musicians who programmed the beats truly were. Streets Of Rage 3 for example, this record could be could be the greatest tracks of a hyperspeed, dayglo techno producer like The Mover or DJ Hell if they were cutting white-label 12"s for the first wave grime DJs back in the early 2000's.

Streets Of Rage 3 is sure to attract a lot of attention from across the electronica interest sphere due to John Twells' brilliant Fact magazine piece on the record, where he describes in great detail how this is not just a soundtrack, but a really really great techno record, no questions asked (this article should be your next stop after copping the wax above).

Above all and anything else, this is just really fun music, designed to ignite your senses and mind and make sure your thumbs keep moving. When comedian, actor and satirist Marcus Brigstocke described the influence of video game music as “If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.” it's easy to imagine Streets Of Rage 3 was the soundtrack behind his train of thought. Sick record!